


animals like me (do) talk anyway

by ohcinnamon



Category: Smosh
Genre: M/M, aka: one of boze's spells goes wrong and shayne is an accidental cat, cat!shayne (only temporarily), sort of crack-ish? but not really, witch!boze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-02 18:05:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14550315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohcinnamon/pseuds/ohcinnamon
Summary: When Damien gets back to his desk from eating lunch with Boze, there is a cat sitting on it.“Don’t freak out,” the cat says, and Damien freaks out a little bit.the semi-crack AU where boze is a witch, shayne is (temporarily) a cat, and damien is a lovesick idiot. chaos ensues.





	animals like me (do) talk anyway

**Author's Note:**

> the slight AU where damien and shayne live together, and boze is a witch. did i mention that shayne accidentally gets turned into a cat?
> 
> (title from "the calendar" by panic! at the disco)

When Damien gets back to his desk from eating lunch with Boze, there is a cat sitting on it.

“Don’t freak out,” the cat says, and Damien freaks out a little bit.

Because, hey, it’s enough that there’s a talking cat sitting on his desk. That by itself is a lot to digest, but given a little bit of time, he could probably do it. But there’s also the fact that the cat’s voice sounds uncannily like Shayne’s, and Damien hasn’t seen Shayne all day, and if this is what he fears it is...well, that might take a little more time to process. He turns around, walks out the door, walks back in again, and the cat is still there.

Then the cat speaks again, and it still sounds a lot like Shayne’s voice, and Damien has to try not to pass out on the spot.

“I said not to freak out. You’re totally freaking out.”

Damien drags his hands down his face in exasperation and confusion. _Am I dreaming? Please let me be dreaming._ “Yeah, well, wouldn’t you be?”

“Oh, trust me, I am,” the cat-who-may-or-may-not-be-Shayne says, padding toward him just a little bit. “You think turning into a cat in the middle of the day is ideal? I told the squad I was going out for lunch, and next thing I know, I’m a cat. Do you know how hard it is to send a fake ‘had to run home, minor emergency’ text with _paws_ , Damien?”

Okay, so that’s definitely Shayne.

In his defense, though, his doubt is reasonable. Shayne as a cat is not exactly what Damien thought he would look like, if he could have ever anticipated something like this happening. He’s got soft golden fur, big blue eyes, and tabby stripes from ears to tail tip. It would be, without a doubt, one of the cutest things Damien had ever seen, if it was not his best friend trapped in a feline body.

Okay, maybe it’s _still_ one of the cutest things he’s ever seen; he’s just also having a crisis about it because it is not supposed to exist.

“Okay, let’s think about this,” Damien says, trying to be as rational as possible in this particular situation.

“Damien, whatever voodoo shit you and Boze pulled, know that I will kill you when I’m not a fucking _cat,_ ” Shayne hisses, _literally hisses_ , at him.

“I didn’t do anything, promise!” Damien exclaims, throwing his hands up defensively. “And Boze doesn’t do _voodoo_ , dumbass. There’s got to be a way to turn you back. If I’ve learned anything from Boze about magic, it’s that all spells have conditions. There’s no way someone would know how to turn you into a cat permanently, right? God, I hope none of our fans are really talented witches.”

“Please get Boze,” Shayne says, looking like he’s in pain. “I’m so anxious about this, I feel like I’m about to throw up. Do you really want to deal with cat vomit on your desk?”

“Not at all,” Damien replies, already halfway out the door. “Just sit tight for a minute, and we’ll figure this out.”

Boze, it turns out, is in the kitchen, right where he’d left her, talking to Matt Raub about God knows what. Perfect.

“Boze, could I have a private conversation with you for a few minutes?” Damien interrupts, trying his best not to look suspicious. He doesn’t need another reason to be on Matt’s suspicion list; he’s already been on that too many times.

Boze raises an eyebrow at him. “Why? What do you need?”

“Personal stuff,” Damien hisses out between gritted teeth, giving her a wobbly smile. “So. The other room, now, maybe?”

“Go on,” Matt says, nodding toward him. “We can finish talking about this later, I understand.”

“I guess,” Boze sighs, getting up to follow Damien down the hallway. “But dude, this better be an emergency, or you suck. I was _this_ close to convincing Matt that we should put Joven in drag.”

“Oh, trust me, it is.”

He pulls her into their office, shutting the door behind them, and she yanks her arm away from him. “What’s this about?”

“All right,” Damien says, gesturing to the cat perched on his desk. “Shayne, talk.”

“I could make this hard for you and have everyone think you’re crazy,” Shayne responds, flicking his tail back and forth. “ _But_ it’s Boze, and we need her, and I’m still not entirely convinced this wasn’t some kind of plot between you to inconvenience me, so...hey, Boze, how’s it goin?”

Boze looks down at him, wide-eyed, before meeting Damien’s gaze again. “Please tell me this is a really weird dream.”

“Sadly, it’s not,” Damien says, giving her a nervous half-smile. “Trust me.”

“Do you know how this happened to me?” Shayne asks, his ears perking up. “If anyone’s supposed to know why the fuck this happened, it would be you.”

“What? Why would I know that?”

“You’re _literally_ a witch, Boze!” Shayne exclaims, his whiskers twitching with frustration. “Aren’t you supposed to know this magic stuff pretty well?”

“ _Shh,_ keep it down!” Boze hushes him, slapping a hand over his muzzle. “Just because I let you two in on that little secret when I lived with you doesn’t mean I want the _whole office knowing_. If you want me to find a way to fix you, you can’t out me to all of our coworkers.”

“How did this happen?” Damien asks, trying to get between them. The _last_ thing they need is Boze and an angry cat. “And how can we fix it?”

“You’ll have to give me a little bit to figure it out,” Boze says, continuing to stare Shayne down with narrowed eyes. Damien’s not sure whose claws to watch out for more — the literal _cat_ ’s, or _hers_. “I don’t have the answers to everything, you know...but I’m sure I can figure out something.”

“Wait, didn’t this happen to Sohinki once?” Damien turns to Boze, furrowing his eyebrows. “You know, back when you were trying to do him a favor and accidentally turned him into a do—”

“Damien!” Boze exclaims all of the sudden, her eyes going wide. “I need to talk to you right now. Alone.”

“Wait, wha—?!” He’s cut off by a hand around his wrist, uncomfortably strong for such a small person, jerking him backward and out of the room. She quickly slams the door behind them so Shayne can’t follow them out, and gives Damien a look that should put him into crisis mode.

“I think I know what happened,” Boze says in a hushed voice, smiling nervously. “But, uh, I’m not sure how to explain that to _him,_ exactly.”

“Boze, if you’re the one who turned Shayne into a _cat_ , he deserves to know that,” Damien hisses under his breath.

“I didn’t mean to!” She says, throwing her hands up defensively, which totally confirms his suspicions. “Okay, look, it was actually a spell meant for you. I know you’ve been having a rough time lately, what with seeing your ex-girlfriend with another dude and everything, so I may have whipped up a little spell to try to make you feel better.”

“How is _this_ supposed to make me feel better?!” Damien exclaims, his chest stinging with the pain from the breakup that hasn’t quite yet gone away. It’s enough that he’s had to see her with somebody else, and now the most important person in his life is literally an _animal._ “‘Oh, Damien’s sad about his breakup, let’s turn his best friend into a cat!’”

“I’m getting to that, let me talk!” Boze snaps, crossing her arms over her chest. “All right, so I decided to try out some new magic that I’m not used to, okay? For _you._ You’re one of my best friends; I wanted to help you out. I wrote up a spell with the purpose of intensifying the good things in life, the things you love the _most_ , so hopefully it could make you happier.”

“Oh god,” Damien mumbles, feeling the anxiety seep into his chest. “So this _is_ our fault.”

“Again, I didn’t mean to!” Boze insists, trying to backpedal. “Something must have gotten twisted along the way to combine the things you love most instead of just intensifying the things that make you the happiest. And...uh...I guess this was the result?”

“Shayne’s going to kill both of us,” Damien says, stone-faced, before he suddenly realizes something, and his cheeks fill with color. _Fuck. Shit. Son of a...fuck._ “Okay, wait. It’s pretty obvious that I love my cats, but...how did you know that…you know…?”

Boze smirks, looking satisfied with herself for a split second. “I didn’t, actually. I never specified anything in that spell. Magic has its ways of finding things out, baby. You kind of set yourself up for that one. You’d be cute together, by the way. I never guessed you had a crush on him, though I probably should have. A lot of the shit you did when I lived with you two makes sense now.”

The flush in Damien’s cheeks deepens, and he forces himself to keep eye contact. “ _Shut up_ , it’s not like that.”

“Of course,” Boze says sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. “Because magic deciding that the things that you love most in the world are your cats and Shayne is totally platonic. Got it.”

“God, you sound like my ex-girlfriend,” Damien mutters, not realizing what he’s said until it’s out of his mouth.

“Wait — so she broke up with you because she found out you had feelings for Shayne?” Boze asks, a mischievous grin on her face. “You never told me that part. Dames, honey, this is _golden_.”

“In my defense, she realized it before I did,” Damien mumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s not like I _wanted_ that to happen.”

“But it _did_ , and now that’s backfired a bit,” Boze declares, narrowing her eyes in thought. “So we have to figure out how to work with that.”

“How do we reverse it?” Damien asks, trying to follow her train of thought. “ _Can_ you even reverse it?”

“Usually you just have to wait out spells like these — they’re pretty binding,” Boze sighs sadly, before her eyes suddenly light up with an idea. “Unless...unless I can change one of the aspects of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can add another condition to the spell,” she explains excitedly. “I can’t reverse it — you can’t reverse magic once it’s already out in the universe — but I can add a new guideline. The only problem is that it might take a little, uh, anxiety-inducing action on your part.”

“Oh, great, one of my favorite things,” Damien mumbles, feeling the dread already building in his chest. “What do I have to do?”

“You’ll have to admit to him how you feel about him,” Boze says. “I can make it so that once you have a deep secret off your chest, and therefore experience some sort of positive emotion like relief, the spell will wear off. You’d have to give it a few hours for it to wear off completely before he’s human again, but still.”

“Can’t I tell him some other deep secret?” Damien asks nervously. He doesn’t want to have to admit his feelings, especially not like this. That’s _years_ of friendship he’d be putting on the line, something that he’s not willing to risk.

“Like what? What other secrets are you keeping from him, _hmm_? He knows everything about you.”

Damien thinks long and hard about that, and, as much as he hates to admit it, she’s right. Shayne already knows everything else about him; they don’t really keep secrets between the two of them. “...can’t I just wait until he turns back naturally?”

“If you’re up to explaining why you bring your new cat to the office every day and where Shayne’s disappeared to for two weeks, and you also think that Shayne won’t hate you for leaving him as an animal for that long when there was another way to change him back, then yeah, go ahead,” Boze deadpans. “But seriously, Damien, just tell him. It’s better than letting the feelings eat away at you forever, and they might even be reciprocated.”

Damien just shrugs, wondering if he _looks_ as bashful as he _feels_ right now. “I don’t know. We’ve been best friends for so long; I don’t want to lose him.”

“If I know you two, nothing is going to change about your friendship, even if he doesn’t feel the same way,” Boze reassures him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been friends for, like, six years now. That’s too long to let go of. _You won’t lose him_.”

“All right,” Damien sighs, defeated. “I’ll tell him. I’ll do it tonight.”

“Good,” Boze soothes, smiling up at him. “Now, you’re going to go back in there and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble, and you’re not going to mention a _thing_ about magic until you get home so you fuckers don’t expose me, and everything will be fine. Cool?”

 _Yeah, I guess_. Damien thinks, walking back into the office. _If any of this could ever be “cool”, that is._

“What were you guys even talking about?” Shayne asks, yawning a little bit. “You were gone for so long I almost fell asleep.”

“Sleep, then,” Damien says, purposefully ignoring his question as he drops down into his chair. He's not explaining this whole thing until he absolutely has to. “It’ll probably make the day go by faster for you, and then when we get home we can figure this all out.”

“I’m jumping into your lap, and there’s nothing you can say about it,” Shayne says, gracefully dropping into Damien’s chair and curling up across his legs. “This whole ‘being turned into a cat’ thing makes a guy tired, and you’re warm.”

“Maybe you are just a random cat; that’s pretty affectionate for you.” Damien grins, despite the whole situation. “You sure you’re Shayne?”

“Shut up,” Shayne responds affectionately, and that’s that.

The rest of the Games crew starts to file in, finished with their lunch break, and Damien considers himself lucky that Shayne’s managed to fall asleep — he just hopes it stays that way.

“Cute cat,” Joven remarks, pointing at the sleeping furball on his lap. “But bringing it to the office, really?”

“Courtney brings her dog, like, every day,” Damien shoots back, trying his best to not be wearing his ‘ _this cat is actually Shayne, and you should definitely be concerned_ ’ face. It’s not like Joven would actually have the words for that face, but still. He now knows that it’s a possibility for such a face to exist, and he’s pretty sure he’s not masking it well.

“Touché,” Joven responds, apparently not even fazed. “Can I pet it?”

For a second Damien panics, because...okay, even though Shayne is a cat right now, wouldn’t it be weird to be pet by your coworkers? Then he remembers that Shayne works with Olivia on a daily basis, and has probably endured weirder things. “...uh, sure, why not?”

Joven rolls his chair over and scratches Shayne behind the ears, and he actually purrs in his sleep. “Have you introduced it to your other cats?”

“Oh, it’s not mine!” Damien stammers quickly. “It’s...uh...a foster! He’s only gonna be with me for a little while, actually; he’s already got people looking to adopt him.”

“Can’t blame them, he’s a cute little guy,” Mari says, getting up from her chair to come pet Shayne as well. “What’s his name?”

 _Fuck. Fuck. Don’t say Shayne. Don’t fucking...oh fuck, Damien, what’s a name?_ “...Robert. His name is Robert.”

Joven raises an eyebrow at that. “What kind of a cat name is _Robert?_ ”

Damien shrugs. “I don’t know, what kind of a human nickname is Joven, _Joshua?_ ”

“...again, touché,” Joven finally says, accepting his defeat. “He could be a business cat with a name like Robert. Do my taxes.”

Just then, Ian walks in, saving Damien from any more awkward conversation —  _god bless Ian, what a guy, thank you so much_ — and doesn’t even bat an eyelash at the cat sitting on Damien’s lap. “Hey, Joven, Mari, could I have you guys for a little bit? We’re trying to shoot a couple of videos, and we need a few more special guests.”

Damien barely manages to stop himself from getting up and kissing Ian for that one.

For the most part, the day goes by without any major problems. Shayne manages to sleep until the end of the day, miraculously, so Damien doesn’t have to avoid any close calls involving having a talking cat.

“Bye, Damien! Bye kitty — Robert, right?” Mari says, waving at both of them. She grins at both of them one last time before turning to get into her car, and Damien breathes a sigh of relief. They’re alone.

“Robert?” Shayne asks, his whiskers twitching. “Really? My middle name?”

“Shut up,” Damien mumbles. “I couldn’t come up with anything else. It was the first thing I thought of.”

“Let’s go _home_ ,” Shayne sighs, his back arching as he stretches. “Wait, please tell me I don’t have to eat cat food for dinner.”

 

—

 

As it turns out, Shayne doesn’t have to eat cat food — Damien finds some spare chicken and tosses it to him, careful to keep Freyja and Zelda away from him. He doesn’t need his cats getting used to a new feline friend, especially one that will hopefully be human again by the time tomorrow comes.

Speaking of becoming human again, the anxiety in Damien’s stomach is only growing as he tries to digest what he has to do. He should probably do it tonight, so that hopefully Shayne will be able to return to work tomorrow, but he just keeps putting it off in his head. _It’s not the right moment, give it another hour, I’ll do it by the end of the night._

Except it really does take until the end of the night, the last possible moment he can do this if he wants everything to run smoothly, before he works up the courage to say it.

The time comes when they’re laying in Damien’s bed, watching old _Game of Thrones_ episodes on his laptop. He hits the pause button, earning a half-groan-half-meow of discontent from Shayne, and turns to him with as serious of an expression as he can muster while talking to a person trapped inside the body of a cat.

“Okay, so I have something to tell you,” Damien says, wringing his hands nervously. “So...Boze told me a way to change you back, but I have to...well, I have to do something that might make the both of us a bit uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” Shayne asks, frowning as much as he can with that muzzle. “How do you mean?”

“It’s not _bad_ , persay,” Damien starts, an anxious smile on his face. “I just don’t know how you’ll react to it.”

“Whatever it is, don’t worry about me,” Shayne reassures him. “I’m probably still a worse person than you.”

Damien shakes his head. “Boze told me that she could add a new condition to the spell, that if I confessed one of my deepest secrets to you and therefore felt relief, it would make you change back sooner.”

Shayne looks up, confused. “But wait, why would _you_ confessing something make _me_ turn back faster?”

“That’s it, you see,” Damien starts to explain. “Boze cast a spell to try and intensify the good things in my life, but she said it must have gotten twisted along the way, and combined the things I love most in my life instead.”

“...go on,” Shayne says, still not quite getting the point.

“Her magic decided that the things I love most in my life are my cats and you,” Damien says, feeling a bit like he’s going to puke. “I have...I have _had,_ and uh, still _have_ …” He trails off, trying to figure out how he wants to phrase this. There’s not really a way to say it to make it easier, though; he’s just going to have to go for it. He rolls onto his back, stares straight at the ceiling, and swallows hard. “Fuck it, I like you. I have feelings for you.”

“You mean, like...in a romantic way?” Shayne asks, a hint of disbelief in his voice. “Like, as in a ‘more than friends’ way?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Damien murmurs, not breaking his gaze from the ceiling. “I do. And _God_ , can I just tell you how weird admitting this to a _cat_ is? It feels wrong.”

“The feelings are, uh...well, they’re kind of mutual, is the thing,” Shayne mumbles, a nervous laugh in his voice. “And yeah, I really wish I was a person to have this discussion with you. But...soon, I guess? How long did Boze think it would take?”

“A few hou...wait, what?” Damien asks, turning on his side to look at him, and yeah, this is still weird. “You... _me?_ Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Shayne says, curling his tail around his body tightly to try to shrink into himself. “I’ve sort of had feelings for you for a while, now. I feel like that’s been pretty obvious to everybody but you.”

“... _when?_ ” Damien asks, feeling just a little bit breathless. “I mean, how long? How did everyone know except me?”

Shayne shrugs, if you can even call it that, and turns his head to look at him. “I don’t know, it just kind of happened over time. Like, looking back, I realize a lot of the signs were there, but it didn’t really hit me until I was in over my head. It was a gradual thing.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Damien breathes, a newfound bubbly feeling in his chest. “I mean, it’s the same here, but to hear you say it is so…”

“I know,” Shayne finishes for him. “I feel the same way. I never really thought I’d get to this point, if I’m being honest.”

“Do you feel any different?” Damien asks, sitting up a little. “I mean, in terms of magic. Does it feel like the reversal is working at all?”

“Maybe,” Shayne admits, standing up to pace in a circle a little bit, his tail lashing back and forth. “I mean, I’m not sure what reversing a spell is _supposed_ to feel like, and I also might just be freaking out a little bit because of the conversation we just had, so I can’t tell. My emotions are kind of all over the place right now.”

“Mine too,” Damien admits, laying back down. “I mean, fuck, I never thought I would tell you that I like you, much less have those feelings be _requited_. I’m not experienced at this kind of thing.”

“So...what do we do now?” Shayne asks, peering over at him. “I _would_ want to stay up with you until I change back, but being a cat is still making me kind of tired, and…”

“Sleep,” Damien says, patting the spot next to him on the bed. “Everything will be normal again when you wake up, and we can figure this whole thing out then.”

“Okay,” Shayne says quietly, padding over and tucking underneath his arm. “Okay, I can do that.”

Damien eventually falls drowsy with a warm, content Shayne curled up by his side, purring gently as he drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

 

—

 

When Damien wakes up, his cheek is pressed against the warm skin between wide shoulderblades, and he exhales a sigh of relief. This is familiar. This is Shayne, the one he knows and loves. He wraps his arms around Shayne’s torso and breathes in, warmth gradually spreading through his chest. He missed this; the being human part, at least. He’s never really woken up with his arms around Shayne — at least, not like this — but it’s something he could definitely get used to.

Shayne turns over in his arms, his eyes still half-lidded with sleep, and the corners of his lips quirk up into a tired smile. His hair is a mess, and they both definitely still have morning breath, but it still makes Damien’s heart skip a beat. “Well, it looks like I’m me again.”

“You never stopped being you,” Damien answers, mirroring his smile. “You were just...furrier, I guess. You're still cute, though.”

“So, I’m still thinking about something you said last night,” Shayne starts, his cheeks flushing just the slightest. It’s unreasonably cute, and Damien can feel his own cheeks heat up a little bit in response.

“Like what?” Damien asks, feeling his heartbeat begin to drum out a steady, yet excited rhythm.

“That spell was supposed to combine the things you _love the most_ , right?” Shayne asks, a small, shy grin on his face.

“It was originally just supposed to intensify the happiness in my life,” Damien mumbles, unable to resist the soft grin crossing his own lips. “But yeah, I guess that’s how it ended up.”

“You love me the most. That’s crazy.” Shayne lifts his hand tentatively, and Damien gingerly reaches out to twine their fingers together. This is all new, unspoken territory, but they’ll navigate it together. “I’m glad it ended up this way, to be honest. Even if I had to be a fucking cat for a day.”

“Not that I didn’t love you as a cat,” Damien teases, his grin so wide it threatens to split his face in two. His heart is hammering wildly against his ribcage, but now that he knows Shayne feels the same about him, he’s more willing to take the leap of faith. “But how the hell was I supposed to kiss you with those whiskers?”

“Kiss me, huh?” Shayne says, more of a statement than a question, but the uncertainty in his tone still stands. He looks just as scared as Damien feels, which is a bit of a comfort. “Human-Shayne would like that a lot. I promise I won’t bite.”

Damien’s heart feels like it’s going to fall out of his mouth, but he nods. “Human-Damien — I mean, uh, just _me_ , I guess — would like that too. Very much.”

“I guess that we should probably try that, then, huh?”

“Maybe, yeah. If you’re cool with that.”

When Shayne finally leans over and kisses him, it takes a bit of getting used to — the way stubble feels scratching against his face, the soft, needy sounds Damien’s never heard him make before escaping from his throat — but he’s a fast learner, or so he’s been told. He’ll eventually memorize what it feels like to have Shayne laugh into his mouth (“your feet are _cold_ , I can’t help it”), but right now he’s stuck in the moment. Because the moment is pretty damn nice, in his opinion.

And after a long, sweet morning spent in bed together, Damien takes it upon himself to text Boze at noon — “thanks for being terrible at magic.”

**Author's Note:**

> you think boze is really bad at magic? please. she knew what she was doing the whole time.


End file.
